This invention relates to a valve-controlled compression-ignition engine with direct fuel injection and a swirling air charge, whose combustion chamber is located in the piston and is configured as a toroidal part engine in a throat-like cylindrical part towards the top of the piston, a center part being provided in the center of the combustion chamber, which forms part of the toroidal section, its top remaining just slightly below the fuel jet of the injection nozzle at upper dead center of the piston and forming a narrow, ring-shaped overflow passage together with the throat, leading from the toroidal to the cylindrical part of the combustion chamber.